The invention relates to an interface for transmitting messages between two bus systems.
The technological task often arises of making available messages transferred in one bus system using a certain mechanism of information distribution for devices connected to a second bus system using a differently designed information distribution mechanism. Previous solutions to this problem have essentially used the approach of “packaging” messages from the first bus system at an interface to the second bus system into messages of a type suitable for the second bus system. The connected devices “unpack” the transmitted data to recreate the message in its original format of the first bus system and interpret it appropriately. This solution does not ensure satisfactory interoperability between bus systems. For example, it is not possible to develop the devices connected to the second bus system without taking into account the parameters of the first bus system since these devices must be able to interpret the “unpacked” messages in the format of the first bus system. In addition, the information distribution mechanisms and transmission capacities of the two bus systems may be so different that a translation of every message received from the first system into a packaged message distributed on the second system does not provide useful functionality of the systems.
Therefore, there is a need to provide an interface for the transmission of messages from one bus system to a second bus system as well as a method for transmitting these messages which permits complete interoperability of the bus systems and which allows development of devices connected to the second bus system without consideration of the parameters of the first bus system, or to address devices already existing for a given task and compatible with the second bus system with messages derived from the first bus system.